The bright light faded and Sam took a quick look around. The place looked like an old cellar, made of stacked stone, no filler or cement, just stone stacked tightly. It was grey and looked slightly damp, the ceiling and floor looked to be natural stone much like being inside a cave. There were torches along the walls in the hallway in front of them, lighting up the place just enough to get a decent look at things. Though his eyes adapted second by second to see more and more, a minute or so should be enough to be more or less safe with this lighting.
Behind them was the same shimmer as in the portal room, the only reason he could even see it was because there were torches behind it, being affected by the heat-like effect. The hallway bent to the right ahead.
A quick test, something he realised he should have done before, was that he took one of the daggers out of the sheath and tried to lift it with the Psyhands. He could lift it with two hands now, rather than three, but this left him with less force to use it. Mentally taking note of this, he should consider three hands per dagger still, if nothing else it would let him swing and use them better. With the extra energy he got from putting both points in SPT, it allowed him to wield two daggers, using all six hands.
“How are we going to do this?” Sam asked, his body full of adrenaline.
“I think that with the gear we are using now, you shouldn’t do too much damage even if you do hit me, so I think we’ll just give it a go and see how it works out?” He sounded genuine, even though it felt strange to Sam for someone to be this careless about things.
He didn’t wait, he started walking into the hallway. Sam followed right after and to his surprise, as soon as he exited the area with the portal and entered the hallway properly, a window popped up.
[ Dungeon clear conditions:
Kill the Goblin chief. 0/1
Optional: Kill all monsters
Goblins: 0/10
Kobolds: 0/5
Rewards:
10 xp
1x Random low-level crafting material
Chance (50%): E-tier weapon or armour.
Bonus rewards for optional step:
5 xp
Random Box - X. ]
Just a glance at this he could see how people could do these dungeons again and again, getting a lot of Experience and some simple loot to sell. Wondering how much Experience he got from the Goblins previously, a little window opened up in his view with a log of sorts, showing what items he got, Experience sources and where he put his Attribute points. Everything seemed dated and all in all, it was a good log!
The base Goblins gave him 2xp each, and the Chief gave him 5, for now, he assumed that the kobolds would give him the same, so 2 each. With that as the base math, there was a total of 35xp just from killing things. That would let him level up without problems. Adding the extra 15xp from fully completing the dungeon puts this as a total of 50xp from a clear. Now Toren explained there was a 50% split between team members, though the quest was individual, this would give him 17.5, rounded down to 17xp from killing, and with the 15 this was at least 32xp. It was simple maths. According to the Level up info the System gave him, he needed double the amount of Experience per level, so he needed 10 to hit Level 2, 20 for 3, and so on. Currently being on 5/40, that should almost give him a level.
If this was as safe as it sounded, it could be farmed for progression. However, once he hit level 4, he would need 80 experience to level again. A bit dramatic so he would need almost two solo runs to level, the next being 160, then needing almost four. So it made a lot of sense why farming the starter dungeon wasn’t always the best. Though he imagined that mages or skilled adventurers that could just run through the place, exploding everyone and everything in groups, could probably clear it super fast, getting multiple runs an hour. So it might still be worth it once he got better at things, just as a farming tactic.
It felt strange, he hadn’t played games like this for so many years, but the mentality didn’t go away.
Sam had been focusing on the math and spectacle of things, feeling relatively safe with a higher-level ally had let his mind wander. He realised this as Janik stopped him before they turned a corner. Having already turned the first corner in the hallway this was the second, pressing his index finger to his lips he suggested Sam be quiet. He did as told as Janik looked around the corner.
Making a few finger symbols, first pointing at his eyes, then two fingers up. Sam understood this as two targets. Janik motioned for Sam to take a look for himself and as he silently moved to the edge and looked around, there were indeed two targets. The best explanation of what they were doing was a weird ‘you hit me and I hit you’ game, taking turns lightly punching each other. What fucking idiot creatures they were...
They were a bit too far into the room for Sam’s Area range, he needed to get closer.
Turning around, Janik leaned in close to Sam’s ear and whispered.
“Let’s both go in, it’s only those two. I’ll take the left one and you take the right one, any way you want, just don’t hit me.”
Nodding in agreement, Sam pulled out two of his daggers from their sheathes with his hands, having them float into the air afterwards. They were stuck in there surprisingly well, so it was easier to pull them out by hand and take over with his Psyhands.
Janik grabbed his swords as he calmly stepped around the corner, as he started running towards the Goblins, Sam did the same. As they sped up, the Goblins noticed them. Looking towards the duo they shrieked as they charged back at them.
This was a good time to test something since he had two floating daggers and a backup in the sheath, he could try the launching mechanic. Releasing one hand on one dagger, he used the returned energy to ignite the throwing pulse. A dull popping sound sent the blade flying forward, darting safely past Janik but it missed the target and bounced across the stone floor. Not waiting to risk doing the same again he kept the other one in his Psyhands. Using the spare energy he put all six hands on the remaining dagger.
Janik was incredibly fast, he made it to his target before Sam had gotten within his Area’s range, having pulled just one of his swords on the way the Goblin’s neck was sliced clean through before Sam had even acted.
Coming into range he could do his part in this, the dagger was already en route in a long-range stab, as his focus was on the beheading of his friend, Sam’s dagger landed in the side of his head without problems, falling over like someone flipped a switch.
Sam stopped running and walked the rest of the distance, when he got in range he remote-picked up the dagger that missed but had to manually pull the other one out of the skull he hit.
“That’s a pretty good stab.” Janik complimented. “Just a shame you missed that first one, it would have been a good first strike if it hit.”
The compliments Janik came with were kind of strange, they touched on the failure but in a positive way. The miss wasn’t complained about, rather considering the idea behind it. The hit was good so that was fine, but it was still oddly weird to Sam.
A little window in the corner of his eye listed two instances of XP sources, one for 1, and one for 2. If they were 3 per head as he expected before, it seems the System is handling the splitting well. The XP bar updated, as did the Active Quest window on the side.
[ XP to lv.4: 9 / 40 ██░░░░░░ ]
[ Dungeon clear conditions:
Kill the Goblin chief. 0/1
Optional:
Goblins: 2/10
Kobolds: 0/5 ]
“Oh, fuck... I forgot that.” Janik exclaimed as he stood and stared into nothing for a few seconds. “There. There is so little XP in this dungeon, that I turned off the sharing. You should be getting everything from now on. We can do this dungeon a few times for your sake, but when we move up to the other ones I’ll turn the sharing back on.” Sporting a toothy wide smile he looked very happy for Sam in regards to his own choice.
“T... Thank you.” He was a bit hesitant. Though this dungeon was low risk, especially to someone like him, it was still a very nice thing to do. Even if it was for his own sake, boosting up his teammate-to-be, he still felt oddly touched.
“C’mon, let’s keep moving. I’ll draw their attention but I’ll let you handle the work, I feel you need the experiences more than me.” he turned around and entered another hallway, continuing the Dungeon.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
This process happened a few times, the next rooms were similar. Just one or two Goblins at a time, somewhat unarmed, and since Sam was currently playing ranged they fell easily enough. The few times he missed he could just pull things back and attack from their back, landing a solid stab or slice that way. He found out that since the system was based on numbers, he didn’t always need to hit as hard as he could. A grazing hit didn’t do full damage, but a ‘decent’ hit did the same damage as a full six-handed hit. This made him trust himself a bit more and let him try a few single-target encounters with three daggers floating, instead of just two. They felt a bit heavier, but it still worked surprisingly well. He even hit some launches after the first one failed, at least he didn’t dull the tip as he feared he might.
After a few of these groups, the Goblins started being armed, with pointy sticks and rusted to hell blades. The progress was also looking better.
[ XP to lv.4: 23 / 40 ████░░░░ ]
[ Dungeon clear conditions:
Kill the Goblin chief. 0/1
Optional:
Goblins: 9/10
Kobolds: 0/5 ]
Janik helped with some of them, mainly to run around and be a target, though it looked like he wasn’t taking it seriously, Sam knew he was giving him the experience of doing the killing and learning how to do different things. Between fights he suggested Sam do things differently, to get a feel for the different ways things could be done.
Coming into the next room, Sam got the first chance in this dungeon, rather than the little green men, there were different creatures. Almost looking like lizards walking on their hind legs, with some vague anthropomorphic features, he assumed that these were the Kobolds. They stood about navel tall, compared to Sam. They had thick tails that tapered until the tip, green/grey scaled skin and a mouth full of teeth. Had they not snapped their stare towards the two Players with hate in their eyes, they might even have been considered adorable.
Both of them had two stone-tipped spears. As they started moving towards Janik and Sam, they each threw one of them at each of them. Janik simply stepped to the side and avoided the whole thing, having it hit the stone wall behind him before falling to the floor. Sam was not so lucky.
Trying to dodge it, as his Psyhands were busy, the Kobold must have expected this as the spear landed exceptionally well, piercing the armour’s protection and landing on the outside of his thigh
[ Armour, Defense 5 has lowered the damage. Critical hit. ]
[ HP: 31 / 35 █████░░ ]
“Ah! Fuck!” Sam shouted in pain, though through all of them walking towards each other he found himself in reach soon after.
Sending the daggers towards the one who hurt him, the lack of focus due to the sudden pain had him miss entirely, however even though the kobold tried to deflect and sidestep the next attack, the ability to move it in the air allowed the second dagger to land true in his chest. Not even a second later, the second fell to Janik’s blade, having a deep gash in his chest.
[ Dungeon clear conditions:
Kill the Goblin chief. 0/1
Optional:
Goblins: 9/10
Kobolds: 2/5 ]
[ Experience gained: +6. ]
[ XP to lv.4: 29 / 40 ██████░░ ]
Relaxing a little, he was glad for two reasons. First of all the fucker who threw the spear was now dead, the second thing was that the Kobolds seemed to give three XP each, a little bit more than the Goblins. Thought based on the damage done they warranted that.
“Crafty little fuckers, aren’t they.” Janik smiled at him, not seeming phased that he had taken damage and was bleeding slightly. “Kobolds are good in groups, as long as there are two or more of them it seems they get some weird bonus or something. If it’s just one they tend to give up or run away.”
This was good info, not that knowing it sooner would have helped him, but he would have liked to know these things beforehand.
The next room was almost a little cheating, it was much smaller and the single Kobold in there who was eating some mushrooms, didn’t notice Sam before he was within the Area’s reach, a swift dagger across the throat and it was over. The prompt listed +3 XP and +1 kill for the log.
Coming to a larger room, peering around the corner this time they could see that this room did not have any exits, save the one they were looking through. There was one Chief with a rusty small sword, one goblin without any weapons and two Kobolds with only one spear each. A true test of the person, or group, after coming this far.
Having the chance to discuss their plan through hushed whispers, Sam wondered how they would be doing this.
“I think we should do it as realistically as possible.” Janik replied. “Though this isn’t as much of a challenge as it seems, I think we should treat this as if it was level-appropriate and dangerous. Take out as many as we can through the opening moment, and go in proper from there.”
Sam couldn’t argue against his point. And he was slightly in luck. As one of the Kobolds was walking around in the room, if they were patient, he could reach him by extending his Area, letting them get one of them before they even entered.
They just stood there, waiting for a while. Janik didn’t question why they were waiting so either he already guessed his plan, or he was letting Sam take his time. Either way, he didn’t rush it and was patient as well.
As the kobold finally entered Sam’s extended area, he sent a blade flying, grasping it with his Psyhands he managed to hit his throat. Barely cut deep enough to hit an artery. The lizard grabbed his throat as he coughed through gurgling, falling over and bleeding out. This confused the room, the Chief said something in an unknown language which had the Goblin run forward and investigate.
This was perfect.
The Goblin came into range as he inspected his dead ally, as he stepped in the blood and inhaled for a shout, the same dagger returned to repeat the event, deeply slicing through his throat. The following events mimicked that of his scaled friend.
With one Kobold and one Goblin taken out, there was just the Chief and Kobold left. The quest log and XP updated. 37/40 XP, and only the Chief and one Kobold remain in the quest.
The two remaining monsters seemed to act in unison, they darted forwards and ran towards the hallway leading to the corner the duo was hiding in. Seeming to get that there was something there.
“You focus on the boss.” Janik commented as he waited until they neared the corner. As they did he sprung out, heading for the Kobold.
Sam couldn’t -not- do anything, he tried sending out a dagger at maximum range, as it worked with the others. The Chieftain seemed to see it coming and stepped to the side just in time to dodge. The following knife aimed for his chest, a larger target. Sadly for Sam, it had the same result. Though rusted to hell and back, the chief’s sword was enough to attack and parry the incoming blade, having it miss its target.
Due to the angle of where he was compared to where Sam was looking from, the Chief now saw the hiding human. Seeming to ignore the swordwielder he made for Sam. Pulling back his two daggers he aimed them at the Goblin’s back, the angle should be illogical enough that he wouldn’t see it coming. Lack of experience with those kinds of angles had Sam, yet again, miss his target. But seeing how he missed allowed him to adjust properly and land the dagger in his back. This caused significant damage to him, but he still stood upright, a few coughs of blood before his eyes blacked in rage and with a gargling scream he ran for Sam.
Pulling his last dagger from its sheath, he grabbed it with three Psyhands and sent that for the Goblin’s chest, at the same time he turned the dagger that just missed him as well.
They both missed.
In the panicky moment of seeing this damaged, gargling and fucking livid Goblin charging for him, hellbent on murdering his assailant, Sam flinched.
The chief had no weapons, but that didn’t stop him from jumping and attacking him with his claws and aiming to bite him. Janik stood there, seemingly ready but he currently let it happen, he must know something Sam didn’t.
A flashback of the damage the last chief did to him, he steeled himself, pulling in both daggers he made another attack at his assailant. But at the same moment, the goblin landed his two claws.
[ Armour, Defense 5 has negated the damage. ]
[ Armour, Defense 5 has negated the damage. ]
A very brief respite gave him a single breath of relief before the Goblin used his grasp, though not doing any damage it still held onto him, to pull himself in for a bite.